I have a question for the folks who grow a lot of canola, what kind of headers do you guys use? Here is my dilema, I farm in Eastern Washington State, which is a predominantly wheat growing area (with some barley and triticale). We started growing some canola a few years ago and with wheat prices where they are these days we are going to be putting a lot more canola in this spring. Thus far I've been cutting it with an older HoneyBee SP36 draper, but I'm not real happy with the job it does with canola. I have a top auger on it, but this header has a split reel and the canola tends to get hung up on the center support, and the header just doesn't feed real well in general. I also feel like that header has a ton of holes and gaps that canola is getting tossed out of as well. Yields so far have been around 35 bu or less, but I'm hoping to improve upon that significantly.
I purchased a Shelbourne stripper header a couple years ago which I LOVE for harvesting small grains. I would really like to use it on canola too, and I'll probably give it a shot, but I'm not terribly optimistic that I'll get satisfactory results. To further complicate things we also are beginning to grow some peas and garbanzos. At this point I think the best thing to do would be to get rid of the Honeybee and get something more appropriate for these other crops, but what is going to be the best choice? Canola and legumes are all very new crops to my area so the usual practice of copying what the neighbors do isn't going to work.
Right now I'm leaning towards getting a flex head with a full fingered auger, something like a Case 3020 (even these are very hard to come by in my area). If I can find one I hope to rent it for the season and then make a decision after harvest. I think the best thing would be a header with the extendable cutter bar (like the Claas Vario or Biso Ultralight), but there isn't one of those things within a 1,000 miles of me. What insight can you folks give me?
I purchased a Shelbourne stripper header a couple years ago which I LOVE for harvesting small grains. I would really like to use it on canola too, and I'll probably give it a shot, but I'm not terribly optimistic that I'll get satisfactory results. To further complicate things we also are beginning to grow some peas and garbanzos. At this point I think the best thing to do would be to get rid of the Honeybee and get something more appropriate for these other crops, but what is going to be the best choice? Canola and legumes are all very new crops to my area so the usual practice of copying what the neighbors do isn't going to work.
Right now I'm leaning towards getting a flex head with a full fingered auger, something like a Case 3020 (even these are very hard to come by in my area). If I can find one I hope to rent it for the season and then make a decision after harvest. I think the best thing would be a header with the extendable cutter bar (like the Claas Vario or Biso Ultralight), but there isn't one of those things within a 1,000 miles of me. What insight can you folks give me?
